2016 is the 20th anniversary of my most influential franchises, one that has continually brought me joy for over half of my life and still shows no sign of letting up. The Pokemon Company has been celebrating “#Pokemon20” since the beginning of the year with various game promotions, special events, and exclusive store merchandise as fans celebrate the nostalgic days of Pokemon while also getting hyped for the next generation of games with Sun/Moon. Being the Pokemon fan that I am, and with Sun/Moon just a few days away, I couldn’t resist doing something special to celebrate my fandom on a personal level. So I put together a scrapbook of all the Pokemon paper goods I’ve collected over the years – pamphlets, stickers, flyers, postcards, bookmarks, CD booklets, VHS covers, TCG badge booklets, and anything else that could fit in a scrapbook…

I did my best to put the scrapbook in chronological order, starting from the late 90s with Red/Blue and Gen 1 up until now, with Gen 7 and Sun/Moon just around the corner. I also didn’t include anything “obvious” like actual Pokemon trading cards, instruction booklets for each game, etc., – I have a few things like this, but I wanted to focus on more unique items that perhaps not everyone has seen. So without further adieu, here’s one fan’s continuing Pokemon journey told through scrapbooking!

Stickers of all the original Red/Blue sprites from the Nintendo Power strategy guide. On the right is my two first badge books from the first Pokemon Trading Card Game leagues I went to back in the late 90s/early 2000s (sadly neither of those stores exist anymore).

Stickers of all the Yellow version sprites and various other Gen 1 stickers.

An old TCG card listing booklet (back when the card game was released by Wizards of the Coast and not The Pokemon Company) as well as exclusive postcards that came with the Southern Islands card collection.

When Pokemon Snap and Pokemon Stadium came out on the N64, you were able to print out little sticker photos of the pokemon pictures you took. I did that a lot at my local Blockbuster store. There was also a rare photo booth at a theater where I went to see Pokemon The First Movie and printed out photos of my then 13-year old self with a Pokemon background.

In late 1999 I entered a sweepstakes to win a copy of the Pokemon 2.B.A Master CD…and as that paper said, I actually won! There’s the CD booklet too, along with Team Rocket stickers and a Charmander bookmark.

Mewtwo Returns VHS cover along with some First Movie cards from Burger King.

Some of the first Japanese merchandise I bought – a Team Rocket CD and a VHS of random Orange Islands episodes.

Getting into Gen 2 now with the Pokemon The Movie 2000 VHS cover and CD booklet.

In addition to the actual Pokemon Trading Card Game, there were official collectible cards for the Pokemon anime released by Topps in the late 90s/early 2000s. Here are a few packs and checklist cards from that series.

Random Japanese stickers and sticker cards I managed to find at stores in the US.

The 3rd Movie VHS cover and CD booklet (and a little lenticular thing in the lower right that changes from Unown to Pikachu and Pichu).

Japanese and English CD booklets.

And we’re in Gen 3 with the exclusive Jirachi bonus disc that you got when you reserved Pokemon Colosseum on the GameCube. Also the Battle Frontier Pass booklet when you reserved Pokemon Emerald.

A pamphlet celebrating Pokemon’s 10th anniversary and some Gen 4 flyers I got when I went to Japan in 2009.

Diamond/Pearl bookmarks I got at a Pokemon Battle Revolution tournament, and some more flyers from Japan.

More Gen 4 bookmarks and flyers from Japan (one about a Pokemon promotion at Domino’s Pizza).

Flyers about a TCG set featuring Arceus.

Another paper pickup from Japan, some kind of Pokemon promotion going on at various Japan Railway stations.

And now we’ve hit Gen 5 – the booklet on top is from a Pokemon Black/White mall tour I attended in 2011 before the games hit the US. And below are tags from the Tepig, Snivy, and Oshawott plushies I bought there.

In 2012 I briefly got back into the Pokemon Trading Card Game after not playing for nearly 10 years. Here’s some of my early badge books and Play Pokemon! booklet that came with a championship deck I bought.

Into Gen 6 now with more badge books…

…and some more badge books.

And we’ve finally hit the current year! Here’s a Pokemon20 flyer I picked up at my local GameStop, as well as the various code cards they’ve been giving out throughout the year to get special event pokemon like Mew and Arceus in your games.

I attended a small Pokemon event at GameStop a few months ago and picked up this activity book. And the slips below it are from some Japanese Pokemon figures I recently bought.

The pages are getting a bit emptier now as we’re nearing the end…here’s another Pokemon20 flyer and a Sun/Moon art card I got from the aforementioned event at GameStop.

Two more art cards from that event.

With all the strife and sorrow of the world, time and time again Pokemon has continued to be a shining light of certainty for me in all the times of uncertainty. It’s helped me make life-long friends, learn about myself, find the courage to be who I am, and given me so much happiness when other sources faded away. So thank you, Pokemon. As more years go by, I look forward to filling up the scrapbook! But for now, I’m looking forward to engrossing myself in Sun/Moon this weekend! =D

Hi all, it’s certainly been a while. As most of you know (if any of you are still following this blog), since I started working full-time about a year ago, my free time has been very limited, so I’ve been taking a break from consistent blogging. Rather than having the pressure of a blogging schedule like I had for many years, I’m now only writing new posts when I feel like it. And today happens to be one of those days, since I’m on a mini-vacation until Wednesday and have a few things to report…

A day at Anime Expo

First off, yesterday I spent the day at Anime Expo. Usually I go to the con every year for at least a few days, but this is the first time I’ve gone for only one day since my very first AX back in 2005. Since I only went for the one day and all I did was shop around the Exhibit Hall and Artist Alley, I’ll just say a few things about my experience here and won’t be posting an elaborate coverage post like I usually do. But for those curious, there are a couple of reasons why I only went one day this year. One is that I’m trying to save money for another trip I have planned this summer, the Pokemon World Championships in August, which is a 3-day event in San Francisco. And another reason is that I promised I’d go with my mom on a little vacation this Sunday to Tuesday. She wants to get away for a few days because she can’t stand the firecrackers that obnoxious people in our neighborhood go crazy with every 4th of July. She has a lot of anxiety issues, especially with loud noises and dangerous things like illegal fireworks so close to our house, so she decided she can’t deal with it another year and has to get away. We’re not going very far, just staying in a nice hotel in an area where there shouldn’t be any 4th of July noise pollution going on. I’m actually looking forward to it because we’re making it a totally relaxing vacation and don’t plan on doing anything besides going to the hotel pool, watching movies, eating out, reading books, and not worrying about anything.

But anyway, as for my one day at Anime Expo 2016, it had a rough start but ended up fine in the end. When I arrived bright and early at the convention center, all I wanted to do that morning was get my badge and then get in line for the Exhibit Hall, which opens at 12pm on Day 1.

The line to get badges actually wasn’t too bad, only taking about an hour when I arrived around 7:30am. This is due to a new system AX implemented last year where, at the cost of no longer having personalized badges with each attendee’s name on it, registrations are able to be processed much quicker. The rough part started after that when me and a couple of friends wanted to get in line for the Exhibit Hall. Since people weren’t allowed inside the convention center until 10am, there was all kinds of chaos all around the building with lines of people going every which way and blending into each other: a line of people who wanted to get their badge, another line of people waiting to go inside, another line of people for the food trucks outside, plus all the people just hanging around. We got into a line that the staff member said was for the Exhibit Hall…and we were there for over 3 hours! But what was most infuriating was that, when we had finally reached the front of the line around 12:30pm and it was our turn to go in, the line kinda dispersed and people who weren’t even in the line started coming over from everywhere and just going right in! So it seems like there wasn’t even a point waiting in that line because once 12pm hit, anyone could just go inside whether they came from the line or not >_< At least I wasn't missing events or anything while I was in the line, but still, if I'd known there was no point to it I would NOT have spent all that time standing for 3 hours with a heavy bag, making my feet really sore by the time we went inside.
But anyway, despite how annoying that was, I tried not to let it bother me once I got in the Exhibit Hall and just focused on my usual task of perusing all the booths I could get to.

Lots of anime posters to be bought!

And lots of figures!

And even more figures

Lots of plushies need a home too!

Digimon tri wall

Again, perhaps due to my waning passion for anime, I didn’t buy nearly as much as previous Expos, just a few little things, like the cute Haruhi mug pictured below.

After spending a few hours in the Exhibit Hall, I wanted to fully peruse Artist Alley next, but by then I was really hungry/thirsty and my feet were like jelly from standing for now 6 hours straight, so I had to take a break to get some food and sit for about an hour in the Tabletop Gaming room. While I was there, I hung out with my boyfriend and his sister for a bit, but I was just too tired to try and play Weiss Schwarz or Pokemon with anyone in the room like I had originally planned (so I ended up lugging my heavy box of Weiss decks with me for nothing XP) Once I had rested for a bit, we walked around Artist Alley for a while before I had to carpool back with my friends around 6pm.

Artist Alley

Bought this lovely print from one of the artists

And again, because my time at AX was so brief, I only took a few cosplay photos, which you can see below.

Yours truly with Foxy from Five Nights at Freddy’s

Not sure what this was but it was awesome

Sound!Euphonium cosplayers at Pony Canyon’s booth

Mr. Game and Watch!

As for my general thoughts about my short AX experience this year, I think they’ve been making some good improvements, like moving Artist Alley into a different room than the Exhibit Hall, which provides room for more artists, and having the faster registration system. But as I’ve been saying in my coverage posts of thelastfew Anime Expos, the number of attendees has been growing rapidly each year and is reaching levels where the size of the venue and number of staff members simply cannot effectively deal with such an enormous amount of people. And of course, when you have such overwhelming crowds, the quality of every person’s experience is compromised.

I really think AX needs to start capping attendance because every year more and more young people are getting into anime and related pop culture, while older fans aren’t exactly going away either, or now have children of their own that they can bring! Because of all this, plus my not being as into anime as I used to be, in these recent years I’ve been going into AX expecting some inevitable disorganization (like that futile line waiting I mentioned), but I try to avoid as much of it as I can by only going to events about things I’m really interested in, or for guests I’m just dying to see (there are only, like, five I can think of honestly). I’d rather spend my time shopping around and playing games with friends I don’t get to see often. I would have liked to see the big Anisong World Matsuri event that AX has going on this year, since I like a couple of the bands performing, like FLOW and T.M. Revolution. But again, they’re not must-sees for me, and after how exhausting yesterday was, I’m kinda glad I’m not at Anime Expo again today. Or maybe I’m just getting old XD

New anime, finally!

Besides Anime Expo, my other news is that…I finally managed to watch a couple of new anime this past season! After not watching any new seasonal shows from summer 2015 to winter 2016 (besides the first part of Digimon tri and half of One Punch Man), I decided in mid-spring that I kinda missed watching new anime and wanted to check out some current shows. So I watched the third season of Sailor Moon Crystal, and the latest Studio Trigger anime, Kiznaiver. I recently completed both and enjoyed them very much.

I loved the concept of Kiznaiver right from episode 1 and continued to enjoy it throughout. The whole idea of people being connected through wounds and an organization wanting to use this phenomena for world peace is a very cool premise and not one I’ve seen before. The characters overall were likable as well. I even liked Tenga, the badass, quick-to-violence macho guy, which is an anime trope I usually don’t like. I liked him because he acted on good purposes rather than selfish ones, like defending Katsuhira from the bullies and supporting Chidori in her feelings for Katsuhira despite his own crush on her. I think Kiznaiver would have benefited from being a two-cour series because all of the eight main characters should have gotten the background development episodes that Honoka, Katsuhira, and Sonozaki got. I would have really liked to know Hisomu’s story since he was such an awkward one of the bunch and I had trouble figuring out his motives in some scenes. But for what we got, it was a very good show.

And as for Sailor Moon Crystal III it was, well, Sailor Moon. As much as I enjoy watching Sailor Moon, I can see its flaws and how its over-the-top emotional deus ex machina plots aren’t for everyone (seriously, why has the JSDF not been called all the many times monsters are attacking the city and should clearly be seen/heard by people XD) But despite that, I still like it as I find its old-school superhero/magical girl story charming and nostalgic.

With Kiznaiver and Sailor Moon now over, I’ll pick up at least two more anime to watch this summer season, possibly three. I’m still deciding on which ones so I’ll take recommendations =)

Future plans, for the blog and otherwise

Sometimes I feel like I want to start blogging more often again, but the mood is usually fleeting when I realize I’ve already written so much since I started in 2006, and I end up wanting to use my limited free time for other things, like hanging out with friends and going on trips with them, trying to get better at competitive Pokemon, or just relaxing at home after a hard day’s work with something that doesn’t require the kind of concentration that writing a good editorial post does (I also started rereading the Haruhi novels, slowly though, so it’s gonna take me a while to get through them all). And if I did start writing again, it’d have to (mostly) be about my other interests besides anime, since I’ve already written so much about anime and I’m not as passionate about it now as I am about some other things. So currently I’m going to continue as I’ve been – blogging once in a while when I feel like it, even if it amounts to only a few posts a year, some of which aren’t strictly about anime. I’d rather post less frequently but more enjoyably rather than having to push myself to do it when I don’t want to.

But actually, I may post again soon since I’ll be going to Pokemon Worlds in August for the first time and will probably want to write about my experience there (just to be clear, I won’t be competing in the main competition, since it’s only for the top players who are invited, but there are plenty of side events for everyone else). Speaking of trips, I’m also tentatively planning a trip to Disney World in Florida next spring for a week or so. I’ve never planned such a big trip on my own before, but my job is nice about letting employees take long vacations, and I have paid vacation time saved up. You never know what the future may bring so I should do this sort of thing now, while I have the opportunity.

So yeah, after years of using my free time to not only watch a lot of anime, but also write about it, my passions have moved on, at least for the time being. I’m glad I still have the motivation to watch a few new series, and still consider myself an anime fan (even if I don’t watch a lot of current shows anymore, I still love all my old favorite anime), but the things I want to use my spare time and money for have shifted. But who knows? Maybe one day down the line I’ll need a break from my hobbies now and will want to start blogging again, whether about anime or other things. But for the time being, blogging will still be very sporadic…I’m sure you all understand (and I still try to be active on Twitter though, so you can follow me there).

So with all that said, bye for now and I hope to be back in August for my Pokemon Worlds coverage…and random other times after that~

I’m off for four days this Thanksgiving weekend and didn’t have much planned, so why not finally have a new blog post after so long? XD As I explained in my anniversary post from last month, I haven’t been watching much new anime, but I’ll still be writing about something related today – the recent US release of the Japanese hit game series, Youkai Watch (localized as “Yo-kai Watch”). The game has been a big hit in Japan since its release in 2013 (followed by an anime series and sequel game) and was just released in the US earlier this month. I heard that it has a similar premise as Pokemon and is being hailed as the “next Pokemon” with how popular it became in Japan. Being the Pokemon fan that I am, I was really curious and decided to give the game a try once it was released in English. As of now, I’ve played about 30 hours of it (finished the main storyline and some side quests). So do I feel the series deserves the popularity it’s been getting, and will it really be the next Pokemon?…

Back in January, I wrote a short blurb about the Yo-kai Watch anime after watching the first two episodes. My main issue with it was that it was a bit overly kid-friendly in that there was pretty much no drama or truly serious moments; all the conflict was portrayed too lightly or too filled with slapstick humor for me to get invested. But I still wanted to play the game when it came out in the US because I figured “Even though the anime is obviously made for kids, the games might be more geared toward a universal audience, similar to how the Pokemon anime is made for kids while the games are made for all ages.” So…was that the case with Yo-kai Watch?

Well, I will say that the overall gameplay has an appeal for adult gamers as well as kids, but as far as the story, characters, tone, etc., goes…unfortunately the game is the same as the anime in this regard. Besides the final chapter, there really was practically no dramatic moments, nothing genuinely sad or distressing, no moment where I felt anything terrible was going to happen or anyone was really in danger. There was still conflict of course, but there was never anything major at stake – most of the game just involved your character stopping various Yo-kai from causing trouble. And by “trouble,” I don’t mean they were truly harming anyone; it mostly involved “safe” things like yo-kai inspiriting people to make them lazy, forgetful, argumentative, etc,. And just about all of the yo-kai and human characters, at least the ones in the main story, are again, depicted in a very humorous manner, always making light of the situation and not displaying any truly negative emotions. Even the many boss yo-kai and big bad villain in the last chapter are anything but intimidating; again, most of them are made out as comical more than threatening, not doing anything scarier than a Saturday morning cartoon villain would do.

Now I’m not saying that having a very light tone throughout your whole story is bad. But for Yo-kai Watch, it just doesn’t feel right to me because the world lends itself to some truly dramatic scenarios. A perfect example of this disconnect is with Jibanyan’s story – the poor little guy was killed by a car, which could have been a very sad, moving scene, but it’s played for laughs when the girl who owned him calls him “lame” for being killed by a car, to which everyone is humorously shocked at how cold that reaction is, and then it’s not dealt with again. If the characters themselves take all these conflicts so lightly, how can I get invested in them? Instead of spending time having Jibanyan get continuously knocked away by the cars he fights in a slapstick-fashion, they could have had us actually encounter his owner and find out if she ever truly cared about him, and why he’s so dedicated to her despite her cold reaction to his death, and any emotions and character development he’d go through during those events. And now that I think about it, he’s really the only yo-kai to get this kind of backstory, as brief as it was. All the other yo-kai are just who they are for reasons we don’t know. Yo-kai are technically spirits of beings who were once living, like Jibanyan, so how cool would it have been to find out what they were all like when they were alive and what caused them to take on the yo-kai attributes they now have, and having the main character help them come to grips with the negative emotions that caused them to become yo-kai. So again, it’s not that having a light tone is a problem, but that the Yo-kai Watch world has so much potential for thought-provoking conflicts and character drama that it glosses over in favor of slapstick and gags, which is surprising to me since Japan is definitely NOT a culture that sugar-coats their anime and games despite them being aimed at kids.

And speaking of Japanese culture, another strike against Yo-kai Watch’s success in the US is that some of the English localization choices are just plain bad. It was inevitable that they changed pretty much all of the yo-kai and other characters’ Japanese names to more American-friendly ones. I’m not totally against this because I know the average gamer, especially kid gamers, can better remember and relate to things in their own language, and having to keep track of many foreign names of characters and places would likely alienate and confuse them. But I would say 90% of all the yo-kai English names are silly puns and play-on words (“Cuttincheez?” Really?) Not that they don’t do this with English Pokemon names, but they’re fewer and less obvious than the Yo-kai Watch ones. The English translation of all the game dialogue is also full of word puns and corny expressions. Now I don’t know if all the yo-kai names and dialogue in the Japanese version are like this as well, but I feel like the English version may have gone overboard with it. Then there’s some just plain weird choices, like having Dismerelda and Happierre French for whatever reason. They don’t explicitly say that the game takes place in any real-world English-speaking country, but it’s so obviously Japan and NOT America, that they really should have at least tried not to “whitewash” it so much. The localization of Okami, another game that very obviously takes place in Japan, is a prime example of finding a good middle ground for this – the characters and locations either keep their Japanese names or a shortened, easier-to-remember version of it, and the dialogue has some English expressions/puns, but not too many. It’s 2015, the age of the Internet and kids being way more sophisticated than they used to be – I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t freak out if the game they’re playing takes place in another country and has characters with foreign names.

But while the story, tone, and localization of Yo-kai Watch leave something to be desired for older gamers, the actual gameplay itself is quite fun. One of the best things about it is the map – your character is free to explore an extremely large and detailed world of a typical Japanese suburban city, complete with a downtown shopping district, uptown residential area, a forest shrine, and various buildings and shops. You can even go into the city sewers, back alleys, an old mine, a multi-floored school and hospital, and even the yo-kai realm itself! There are so many nooks and crannies to explore in the game’s map that I know I haven’t even seen it all yet despite my many hours of playing. It’s so complex that I know I would get lost all the time if the game didn’t give you a map of the overworld on the 3DS bottom screen so you can always see your location, the location of all the buildings, roads, NPCs, etc., and which direction you’re currently headed. The game even throws in details that don’t matter just to keep the realistic feel of the setting, such as having cars constantly going through the city streets and encouraging your character to press the button for the walk signal before using the crosswalk! (though nothing happens if you actually do run into the street and get hit by a car, sad to say) There’s also a ton of NPCs to talk to, further adding to the integrity of the setting. For many of them, you can do Requests and Favors as a sort of side-quest to the main story, where you help them dispell yo-kai, find something they’re looking for hidden elsewhere in the map, or solve some kind of puzzle involving searching for items and battling yo-kai.

Speaking of which, what monster-collection game would be complete without battles? The battle system in Yo-kai Watch is different from Pokemon’s, but it’s actually pretty fun. You can have up to six yo-kai with you and you can use up to three yo-kai at once, with the ability to easily switch around the three you’re currently using. The yo-kai battle on their own without you having to command them, though you can get them to use their powerful Soultimate attack by performing some motions with the stylus and touchscreen. Of course, there’s all kinds of classifications for them: each yo-kai belongs to a Clan, some of their attacks are classified under certain Elements, there’s a number of different Personality traits they could have which determine how they behave in battle, each yo-kai has a ranking that determines how rare/powerful it is, yo-kai can evolve or be fused with other yo-kai and items, and so on. I still haven’t figured out exactly how the battle mechanics work (since English Yo-kai Watch sites are still in their infancy) but from what I have figured out, I think it’s an appealing battle system that has a good balance of keeping the player involved in the action while also having the suspense of not knowing what the yo-kai will do on their own. Unfortunately there’s no multi-player online battle system, at least not yet, and the only way to battle other players is locally.

While I give Yo-kai Watch a good rating in terms of its battle/monster-collecting system, having an enjoyably complex map to explore and side quests to accomplish, and just overall good gameplay style, I feel that its insistently light tone and lack of taking its characters and conflicts seriously, as well as a less than stellar localization, will hurt its potential for any kind of worldwide popularity. One of the reasons I feel the Pokemon games have been so successful all these years isn’t just because the gameplay is fun for kids and adults, but the stories and characters are compelling, dealing with genuine drama and suspense, with ambiguous scenarios where there isn’t always a clear answer, especially in the newer games. Even in the older games, there were some real conflict and truly dramatic moments, whether it was your rival in Gold and Silver despising all weak pokemon, or Team Magma and Team Aqua thinking they’re doing good for the planet when they actually end up causing a disaster. In short, the Pokemon games take themselves quite seriously and make you feel like you’re part of this big, important, complex world of good and evil, happiness and sadness, that anyone of any age can get sucked into. That’s a big part of what keeps people coming back to Pokemon, and Yo-kai Watch just doesn’t seem to have that. It would rather make its audience laugh than think, which is fine (though would be better if the jokes weren’t so corny), but in terms of the kind of world it’s set in and the characters it has, I can’t see that bringing in AND holding onto, a lot of adult fans. Lack of an online battling system certainly doesn’t help either, as that’s the foundation of the competitive community of Pokemon and other games, which is where a large chunk of the adult fan base is. Still, it is a bit early to say, and maybe Yo-kai Watch 2 will address some of these issues. But as of now, the game and its newly dubbed anime aren’t doing so well here in the US from what I’ve been reading. So yeah, I really can’t see Yo-kai Watch being a big hit here. I still like the game overall and would still recommend it if you like monster-collection RPGs. But for all its success in Japan, I unfortunately find the game less underwhelming than the anime, but still underwhelming nonetheless.

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And just a side note, I’m going to be off for 10 days from Christmas to New Year’s. I’m planning to watch at least one new anime during that time – likely One Punch Man. Feel free to recommend any others, though I can’t promise I’ll get to them XD Also hoping to have a new post during that vacation too. Stay tuned~

Today is Mainichi Anime Yume’s 9-year anniversary. And, ironically, despite the fact that I haven’t been blogging much lately, this is the first time in years that I actually remembered the blog’s anniversary on time! So I felt like I’d use this special occasion to update those of you who still read this blog on how things have been going with me, as well as any plans I may have for MAY’s future…

As most of you probably know from my initial hiatus post, I decided to take a break from blogging, mostly because I was starting a full-time job, but also because I was running out of topics to write about and just haven’t been as enthused about anime as I used to be. So it’s been over 3 months since that post…has anything changed?

Well, first off, I’m glad to say that my job has been going well. There’s still a lot for me to learn and I have a while to go before I can earn the kind of salary I need, but I’m still training for new tasks, which has been valuable experience that will hopefully lead to promotions and such down the line. Compared to the low-grade jobs I’ve had before, it’s great having a job where people appreciate the things I can contribute. I know nothing is certain, but having this job is surely a step in the right direction.

But alas, working a consistent schedule of 40 hours a week means less free time than I’ve ever had at any point in my life. For someone like me who has tons of hobbies and interests, that means I have to drop some in order to make time for the ones I like the most. And unfortunately, anime has still been on the back-burner. I know initially I was gonna try to watch one or two shows from the summer season, but I ended up not watching any…the first time since I started this blog nine years ago that I completely skipped a season of anime. The only anime I’ve watched in the past couple of months has been the latest Pokemon episodes, and I’ve even been falling a week or two behind on those.

But this doesn’t mean that I’ve completely dropped anime as one of my hobbies. Even though I’m not as into it as I was before, I think it’s come down more to lack of time than interest. As I said, with the limited free time I now have, I have to prioritize for the things I’m more interested in, and anime has since fallen down that ladder. Another realization I’ve had is that, to me anyway, anime is a much “heavier” medium for me to watch than, say, my favorite YouTube Lets Plays. After a long day at work, I want to watch things that are “easy,” and the fast subtitle reading and complex stories in anime just haven’t been what I’m looking for. My life schedule for the past few months has been as follows: Monday through Friday, get up at 5:45am, get dressed, have breakfast, leave for work around 7am and arrive at 7:30am. My work day ends a little after 4pm, I get home around 4:45pm, have dinner, relax for a bit, exercise on the elliptical for a half hour or so if I’m not feeling lazy, take a shower, and by then it’s around 8pm. I then spend an hour doing whatever and have my night snack at 9:30pm and go to bed at 10pm to get at least 7-ish hours of sleep (except for Friday and Saturday nights, when I go back to my old bedtime of 12am since they’re not work nights). As for weekends, I usually spend Saturday running errands, helping my mom with things, playing Pokemon, and just enjoying my time off. And Sunday is “get together with friends for Pokemon and Weiss Schwarz” day where I hang out with a group of my friends and do just that – go to our Sunday Pokemon league at the local game store, go out to dinner, and play Weiss Schwarz and other video/card games in between.

So as you can see, I have some free time but not that much. I’m lucky that I have more free time than most full-time workers since my mom helps me out a lot with cleaning and cooking meals; I only have to do a house chore here and there. Sure, I could have time for anime on Friday nights and Saturday, but as I said, there are other things I’d rather do. I’d rather use that time trying to climb the rankings of Pokemon Battle Spot, watching a movie with my mom, or going out with friends. If I had more free time, I’m sure I’d still be watching a few seasonal anime and blogging about them. But with how my schedule is now, I just haven’t been motivated enough to squeeze in new anime.

But! Like the old saying goes, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.” I feel that if I spend a certain amount of time not watching new anime, I’ll start missing it. At some point I feel like I’ll start marathoning new anime rather than watch seasonally, and/or go back to rewatching my old favorites. So yeah, I’m pretty positive this is not the end of my anime fandom…it’s just on hiatus, like the blog itself. I’m sure one day I’ll want to put my current interests like competitive Pokemon and YouTube videos aside for a while and get back into anime. Or I might even get the inclination to fit anime into my already full schedule.

Anyway, for those of you who still check this blog, I can’t express how much I appreciate your continued support despite the lack of new content. When I started this blog nine years ago, I had no intention of ever closing it down…and even though it’s been on an indefinite hiatus, closing it is still not an option. I can’t say when or what the next new post will be, but I know it will happen eventually. As always, you can follow me on Twitter to keep tabs on me in the meantime (though I don’t tweet that often either). Thanks again to all of you who are still reading and I hope you’re still around whenever the next new post may be~!

Last week I spent three days from Friday, August 14th to Sunday, August 16th at D23 Expo in Anaheim, California. It’s a convention celebrating everything and anything Disney, from their beloved animated movies to their other properties like Marvel and Star Wars. It’s a fairly new, bi-annual convention that was first held in 2009, making 2015 the fourth one. Besides spending one day at the relatively small Equestria LA, D23 Expo is the first non-anime convention I’ve been to. Despite having its flaws due to an overabundance of attendees, all in all I had a great time…

My boyfriend and I arrived bright and early in Anaheim around 8am. We stayed at a hotel just a few minutes walk from the convention center, so after leaving our car there, we walked over.

Unfortunately day 1 of D23 Expo did not start off well at all simply due to the fact that their crowd controlling that morning was terribly lacking as far as getting all the attendees checked in. How it was supposed to work was that Gold/Silver D23 members were allowed to go in at 9am while general attendees could go in at 10am. But there were already thousands of people in both groups lined up when we arrived around 8am and barely any staff members available to organize the crowds. The few staff members that were around couldn’t seem to coordinate, which resulted in many attendees being told to wait in the wrong line and having to walk back and forth before they figured out where they had to be. And when they finally did start letting the Gold/Silver members in, the line was moving at a snail’s pace because they only had a couple of people scanning everybody’s tickets. At that rate it would have taken hours before they finished the Gold/Silver members and could finally start on the general attendees, who were waiting in the hot sun. My boyfriend and I decided to wait out the chaos and just stay in the air-conditioned Hilton food court nearby until the lines started lessening. We were kinda bummed because we thought we’d end up missing a half-day’s worth of convention time at that rate. But luckily the lines really started to pick up around 11-11:30 – they got a bunch more staff members to help with getting people checked in – and we were finally able to get inside the convention center!

Pictured above is the free stuff that every attendee got – a nice reusable bag with backpack straps, a pamphlet guide to all the events and panels going on each day, and a 100-page, full-color booklet describing everything about the expo.

Every attendee also got a pack of D23 exclusive trading cards, like the ones pictured above. They ran this event throughout the con for people interested in collecting all 30 where there’d be certain places and times when they’d be giving out certain cards, as well as a trade station where people could trade for the ones they need. I didn’t care too much for this…I only wanted the Olaf card, which I did finally trade for on the last day XD

Thankfully there weren’t any morning events I was particularly interested in (though I wonder why they even have events at 9-9:30am when most people are still waiting in line outside at that time). The only event of the day I wanted to go to was “Pixar and Disney Animation Studios: The Upcoming Films” at 3pm. For some events, you’re able to get Stage Passes which will guarantee you a seat, but unfortunately events like that one that are held in the big Hall D23 don’t have Stage Passes. So I decided to just shop around the Show Floor (basically D23’s version of Anime Expo’s Exhibit Hall) and head over to Hall D23 around 1:30pm.

They actually had a real version of Fix-It Felix that people could play =D

The Show Floor was huge and absolutely amazing! There were all kinds of things going on: live stage performances, artists and voice actors offering autographs, tons of vendors selling all sorts of merchandise from original Disney paintings to the newest limited edition merchandise at The Disney Store, previewing events for new video games and movies, animators doing live demonstrations, lots of areas set up for photo ops…there was always something to do!

Heading into the Show Floor

This one booth had what I believe to be every single Disneyland park guide on its walls!

Disney pins galore!

Gorgeous (and expensive) paintings!

Pixar wall!

Frozen Fever display at the animation booth

Inside Out animation demonstration

Display for Disney’s upcoming film, Zootopia

A TV display celebrating Walt Disney’s love for nature

Wall space for people to post their own drawings

People waiting in line for…something

At the Robot Corner there was a real Wall E that moved via remote control!

Elsa cosplayer at a booth advertising Frozen cake XD

Photo area where people could take pictures in front of old-day Disneyland backgrounds

The famous Pixar Pizza Planet truck, complete with Toy Story toys inside

At first I wanted to check out The Disney Store to see if there was any new/exclusive merchandise I wanted, but unfortunately it was one of the busiest stores at the con – so busy that they even offer Store Passes for it so you can get to shop during a certain time and not have to wait in line. When I arrived around 12-ish, the line to get in was a good 2-3 hours long. I started waiting for a little while before saying “Screw it, I don’t want to waste all this time, I’ll just come back later.” So I spent the next hour or so exploring the sites of the Show Floor and thinking about things I may want to purchase. Then by a stroke of luck, as I was passing one of the booths with a crowd of people waiting in line, I saw a familiar name on the display – Markiplier!

For those who don’t know him, Markiplier is an extremely popular YouTuber with one of the most subscribed channels for indie game let’s plays. I’ve watched almost all of his horror and funny game videos and find him very entertaining. I had absolutely no idea he would be at D23 Expo since he has nothing to do with Disney (I should follow him on Twitter since he probably announced it there XD) Once I saw that he was really there greeting fans and giving out autographs, I decided to get in line. The sign said he would be there until 3pm, so I wasn’t worried that I wouldn’t get to meet him, but waiting there would lessen my chance of being able to get into the Pixar and Disney Upcoming Films panel I was planning to go to later on. I was okay with that though since I wasn’t dying to go to that panel – I could just find out all the announcements online later – and I don’t know if I’d ever get another chance to meet Markiplier! I only got to talk to him briefly, but I complimented him on his videos, took a few pictures, and got a little autograph card. I’m really glad I decided to walk by that area at that time =D

Yours truly with Markiplier

Unfortunately I didn’t get done at Markiplier’s booth until around 2pm, so I hurried over to the Hall D23 line queue…but I had to stop briefly to get an autograph from Livvy Stubenrauch, the voice of young Anna from Frozen.

When I got to the line queue for the Upcoming Films panel a little passed 2pm, it was already packed. I had to get in the standby line and even though the staff tried to get us all in, after the panel started they had to announce that it was full and they couldn’t let anyone else in. So I wasted an hour there, but I didn’t mind too much…I sort of knew that would happen since I spent so long in Markiplier’s line. After getting some food, I returned to the Show Floor and browsed around a bit more. I finally got into The Disney Store since the line was much shorter now that it was the end of the day. There wasn’t anything I wanted there besides the limited edition Frozen Fever dolls that don’t go up for preorder until November (the ones I saw in the store were display only) and a gorgeous Frozen painting for $400+…I really liked it but I couldn’t bring myself to spend that kind of money on one thing =P I called it a day after that and returned to the hotel to catch up on the sleep I didn’t get the night before.

I didn’t have many plans for the second day besides a couple of panels in the late afternoon. Unfortunately, unlike Anime Expo, people have to get their tickets scanned each day at D23 Expo, so much to our dismay when we arrived that morning, it looked like a repeat of the morning before with thousands of people already lined up with not enough crowd control. Once again we decided to just wait in the food court nearby until the general attendee line started moving, which happened around 10:30-11. At least they seemed a bit more organized than Friday morning XD

We were gonna try to get Stage Passes for either the Toy Story 20th Anniversary panel or the Aladdin panel, both in the late afternoon. Each person is only allowed one Stage Pass at a time (if you want to get another one, you have to wait in line again) so we decided to go for the Toy Story one first with Aladdin as a back up in case they run out. The distribution for the afternoon Stage Passes didn’t open until 12:30, so we shopped around until about 11:45 when we realized that people were already lining up for the Stage Passes. By 12pm the line was already really long, but we got there early enough to get a decent spot.

Line to get Stage Passes

Also got a photo of this amazing cloth picture nearby. Can you find all the characters? :3

None of the Stage Passes ran out by the time it was our turn, so we got ours for the Toy Story panel at 4:30. I spent the next few hours wandering around the Show Floor, browsing a bit more and finding another random celebrity I wasn’t expecting to meet there…Rob Paulsen!

Me and Rob Paulsen

Rob Paulsen did a lot of voices in cartoons from the 90s, including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Goof Troop, The Tick, and the most important one for me being Animaniacs. Animaniacs was a big part of my childhood and I still enjoy watching it even today. So it was awesome finally getting to meet one of the main voice actors! =D

Since this was the day I took the most cosplay photos, I’ll just share all the ones I took at the con here =)

The crossover is real with Maleficent at the Tangled photo area XD

Around 3:45 I headed to Stage 23 where the Toy Story panel was going to be held and met my boyfriend in the Stage Pass line. It was already pretty packed, but we got good spots. Unfortunately no photos were allowed at that panel, so I’ll just say that it was really interesting. It was hosted by John Lasseter and other Pixar staff that worked on the original Toy Story film. They shared all kinds of interesting stories about how Toy Story first came about and even showed exclusive images and videos of the movie’s very early stages of development. We got to see a rare clip from very early on when Woody was a large ventriloquist doll and Buzz was a much smaller space ranger toy (I believe it was the clip that Pixar showed Disney when they were trying to get them to produce the movie). We also got to see the very first Woody and Buzz Lightyear toys that were ever made, and John shared a cool story about how large companies like Mattel and Wal-Mart passed on producing toys for Toy Story, thinking it wouldn’t be a hit (remember, this was the very first fully CG animated movie). They finally got a toy company from Canada to make toys for the movie, with the owner even going so far as to follow John’s insistence on making the Woody and Buzz toys their correct sizes seen in the movie even though action figure toys at that time were supposed to be much smaller. In the end, they sold out of all their toys before the movie even hit the theaters…and we know that Toy Story continued to be beloved even years after that XD

I did get a photo at one of the booths showing the original designs for ventriloquist dummy Woody and small Buzz

After the panel, I decided to walk to Downtown Disney (the big shopping area right outside Disneyland) to shop around and grab a bite to eat. It turned out to be a much longer walk than I remember and I ended up not buying anything besides food and drinks. I didn’t mind though since it was good exercise and I liked looking in the stores anyway XD During all of my trips to Disneyland, I’ve never gone on a Saturday, and seeing how crowded Downtown Disney was that evening made me glad I never did!

We got up around 6:30am the next morning to pack, check out of the hotel, and get breakfast at a nearby restaurant before heading to the con for the last day. I also wanted to get there early and secure myself a good spot in line for the Frozen Fandemonium event. It wasn’t until 3pm but I didn’t want to take any chances, especially with how crowded all the other big events in Hall D23 had been. What I didn’t realize though was that there was another panel in Hall D23 in the morning, so until that panel started they weren’t making a line queue for the Frozen one. So after we got checked in (we once again waited in the nearby food court for the line to start moving, which it did around 10-10:30…as expected, each day they got a little better with their crowd controlling XD) I hung out near the Hall D23 line up area to make sure I didn’t miss the beginning of the Frozen Fandemonium queue. At first the staff ushering people in for the morning panel didn’t seem to know when the queue would start, but soon enough, as soon as that panel’s line was finished, they immediately began to let people line up for the Frozen panel. I was one of the first people in line of course, and I passed the time by playing my DS, reading a Frozen book I had bought from a store in the Show Floor, watching the random Disney video clips they had playing on the TVs there, and eating a chicken wrap I had my boyfriend bring me. They started letting us in around 2:30 and we got pretty good seats in the middle near the front.

My seat

Pictured above is a limited edition D23 Expo-exclusive Frozen Fever lithograph, one of only 2000 made. Funny story…I didn’t even know about these until I saw that a guy sitting next to me had one. I asked him where he got it and he said they were giving them out for free at the animation booth to a select few lucky people who happened to be at the right at the right time. I of course would have liked one but since I missed my chance, I decided to get it from ebay later, which I did…though it would have been nice to get it for free XD If I hadn’t sat next to that guy I would have never known about it and would have saved myself some money! It’s fine though since I really didn’t end up buying that much merchandise at the con.

Anyway, Frozen Fandemonium was absolutely amazing! Kristen-Anderson Lopez and Bobby Lopez, the husband and wife duo who wrote all the songs for Frozen, hosted the event, along with Chris Montan, the president of Walt Disney Music.

They told us all about their work and planning behind each of the songs, and we got to see exclusive images and clips from deleted songs, including some that weren’t even on the deluxe edition of the soundtrack. They sang a few songs as well.

The very first image that inspired the story of Frozen

Singing “Love is an Open Door” (Bobby Lopez played the piano for the songs)

It wasn’t long before they brought in the highlight of the show – Kristen Bell, the voice of Anna! Everyone went crazy when she came on the stage since no one knew for sure she would be there. But it didn’t stop there when they brought in Josh Gad, the voice of Olaf, as well as Katie Lopez and Agatha Lee Monn, the singing voices of young Anna during “Do you want to build a snowman?” Each of them sang their respective songs and Kristen Bell even sang one of the deleted songs that no one’s ever heard her sing before.

Singing “Do you want to build a snowman?”

Josh Gad singing “In Summer” as he dances with Olaf!

And of course, we had to end the event with a big groups sing-along of “Let It Go.” John Lasseter, scriptwriter Jennifer Lee, and other staff members came on stage to join us – even the Disneyland face characters of Anna, Elsa, Kristoff, and Olaf were there! As the song ended, showers of paper snowflakes fell from the ceiling and covered the floor…a perfect way to end the event! Since photos and video were allowed, you can find many clips on YouTube if you want to watch the panel for yourself =D

Everyone singing “Let It Go”

Taking a bow at the end

Glad I’m not the one who has to clean up all those snowflakes!

Overall, my only complaint about D23 Expo was the lack of adequate crowd control, especially for the non-Gold/Silver members trying to get into the con in the morning. It’s pretty much impossible for anyone but Gold/Silver members lining up at 5am or earlier to get into any morning events, and it shouldn’t be that way, especially for people who only had 1-day passes. I know it was probably more crowded this year than the last expo because this is the first one since Disney acquired Marvel and Star Wars, so now that whole crowd of fans is coming too. But still, they should have anticipated that. Once you actually get into the expo though, it’s great. The Show Floor was fantastic and pretty much guaranteed that you’d always have something to do or see. Even though I didn’t go to many panels, the ones I went to were great, and from what I’ve heard, all the others were great as well…no disaster stories like things starting way late or being cancelled. Sure, the constant lines and crowding are a bummer, but that’s just part of going to fan conventions, whether it’s Comic Con, Anime Expo, or D23 Expo. You just have to be prepared to spend many hours waiting in line and make sure to get to places early if it’s an event you really want to attend. So yeah, if they could implement some kind of quick ticket-scanning system like Anime Expo recently did that makes it much quicker to get people checked in, that would make things way better. I know a lot of people complained about the disorganization, especially on Friday morning, so it’s likely we’ll see them try to fix that next time. But again, besides that, I had an awesome time and am so far planning to go to the next one in 2017. It’s definitely a fun place to spend the weekend if you’re a fan of Disney movies, or any of their other properties =D

I have to admit that as the years have gone by, I’m finding myself taking it easier and easier at Anime Expo. Last year, despite staying all five days, I didn’t attend many major panels or events and spent more time just hanging out with friends and relaxing in the gaming room. And this year, that’s pretty much all I did. I think it’s due to a mix of getting older and finding interest in simpler things like playing games with friends that I don’t get to see very often due to my now busy adult life, the con itself becoming more and more crowded each year, making me want to stay away from all but my most must-see events, and the fact that I’m not quite as obsessed with anime as I used to be. But regardless, I still did some notable things, the biggest being the Evangelion 20th anniversary event that I’ll get to on Day 4. But overall, it was a very chill AX and I enjoyed it that way.

Day 2 – Fri. July 3rd

Found these Pokemon Breeders on my first day. Those are actual moving puppets!

Since I have a new full-time job, I didn’t try to get Thursday (Day 1) off. Going three days was good enough for me (Friday was a holiday due to 4th of July falling on a Saturday this year). From what I was hearing, after the nightmare registration lines from last year, AX implemented a new system for getting people their badges that worked really well. Pretty much everyone got their badges within minutes, myself included, which was amazing compared to basically every other AX. The only drawback is that the badges are no longer personalized with every attendees’ name, but it’s a small price to pay for not having to wait in line for hours!

I wasted no time jumping into the Exhibit Hall madness!

All I intended to do on Day 2 was do my full perusal of the Exhibit Hall and Artist Ally and buy whatever goodies I wanted. I spent about three or so hours in there, but didn’t end up spending as much as I usually do. My haul was…

A box of Fate/Stay Night UBW Weiss Schwarz cards. This is one of the newer Weiss sets and one I’m interested in trying out. I haven’t bought new cards in a while, but now that I have income coming in again, I’m excited about making a Fate UBW deck! ;)

To go with my new cards, I bought a Fate/Stay Night card box and an Angel Beats! card deck box (I didn’t really need the latter but I couldn’t resist the gorgeous artwork!)

A couple of goodies from Artist Alley – a Vaporeon keychain that a friend of mine got me since she knows the artist who made them, and a fan for Five Nights at Freddy’s (an indie horror game I like).

And lastly, my biggest purchase of the con, an awesome Mega Rayquaza plushie! It was between him and a giant Wailord plush, but in the end I decided I’d be more likely to find a place in my room for Rayquaza. He’s quite big – he’s about as long as my leg when fully stretched out – and he’s bendable. I was wearing him around my neck after I bought him and he got a lot of looks and compliments XD

Speaking of Mega Rayquaza, I found this guy cosplaying him, with the same plushie XD

After I finished shopping, I met up with some friends to eat and then spent the rest of the night in the gaming room. My friend and I played Pokemon and Weiss Schwarz games with each other and with random people we met, and we even helped a newbie Weiss player build a deck. Since I wasn’t staying overnight that day and was carpooling with friends who were staying late, I didn’t get home until almost 2am (I’m not a night person, so for me that’s really late!) It wouldn’t have been so bad if I didn’t have to get up at 7am the following morning to be picked up by my boyfriend to head back to the con for Day 3. But the excitement overcame my lack of sleep, which was good XD

Day 3 – Sat. July 4th

Got hit with nostalgia when I found Metal Sonic along the way!

The only event I was planning to attend on Day 3 was the Weiss Schwarz tournament put on by Bushiroad, that started at 1pm. I was actually staying overnight at one of the AX hotels with another friend and her group, so I had to take some time in the morning to drop off my suitcase there and grab a bite to eat. My other friend attended the tournament with me and…I sucked pretty bad XD I was using one of my Angel Beats! decks and got really close in one game, lost two, and got a by with two more due to my opponents not showing up (it was a free tournament, so no-shows were to be expected). I know I’ve greatly improved over the years as a competitive Pokemon VGC player and can often hold my own against even champion players, but as for competitive Weiss Schwarz…eh, I still need work =P

At least we got some nice freebies for attending the tournament – a Bushiroad bag, pen, and random anime sleeves XD

After the Weiss tournament, I hung out with friends for a while longer before heading back to the gaming room with them to play more Pokemon and Weiss (guess that’s what I really wanted to do at AX this year XD)

As the picture above shows, there was a concert on Day 3 for IA, one of the popular Vocaloids. Like the Evangelion event I was going to on Day 4, this was a special ticketed event that you had to pay for (about $50 depending on your seating tier). Which leads me to one of the worst AX screw-ups I’ve seen in a while, which didn’t happen to me, but to one of my friends. The picture above was printed in the AX guidebook that everyone got, clearly stating the IA concert was from 8pm to 11pm. My friend is a huge fan and was naturally planning to attend the concert, buying his ticket online beforehand and spending the previous two AX days buying IA merchandise like shirts and CDs. He was totally hyped for the concert, and when my boyfriend and I left him as he headed over there that evening while we chilled in the gaming room, we were surprised to see him come back just a little while later…and told us that the concert was at 3pm, so he’d missed it! He was devastated and I was just furious that they did something like that and didn’t even email the people who bought the tickets to tell them of the change, or make any big announcement about it. He said about twelve other people had come to the concert room at 8pm as well only to find that the time in the book was wrong and they’d wasted $50. So yeah, that was extremely messed up, and if any of you guys who went to AX and know how/why this issue happened and if anything is being done about it, let me know!

An amazing Good Smile display showcasing all 500 of their Nendoroids

After chilling a bit more in the gaming room, I headed back to my hotel early to try and catch up on the sleep I didn’t get the night before. I was in bed a little after midnight, but unfortunately I had a bout of insomnia and couldn’t sleep much again…probably due to my not being used to sharing a room with a bunch of people, something I haven’t done since AX 2007. I’m already a light sleeper as it is, so yeah, sharing a room with more than one or two other people just isn’t for me. I’m just getting too old that too I guess XD

Day 4 – Sun. July 5th

Despite wanting to sleep in, I ended up getting up around 7:30am on Day 4. I was really hungry and craving decent food since I hadn’t been eating great the past couple of days, so I decided to splurge and get the expensive hotel breakfast buffet. It was so delicious…totally worth it! The Evangelion event was from 1:30 to 3:30, and since I had pre-bought my ticket that had a specific seat number, I didn’t need to get there super early (and unlike the IA event, the time was actually printed on the tickets, so AX couldn’t screw that up!) So I took my time heading back to the con and ran into my friend Spoon in the gaming room. There was an exhibit for doing origami cranes to hang up, and he was struggling with trying to make one. I’ve done origami before but was totally out of practice. We spent almost an hour trying to get our cranes right XD

Where everyone’s cranes were displayed

Around 12:45 I headed over to the room where the Evangelion event was going to be held and lined up a little before 1. They let everyone in soon after.

My fairly decent seat inside the event room. Unfortunately photos and video recording weren’t allowed once the event started, so I can’t do much more other than tell you guys how it was. Going by the event description, all I knew was that Yoko Takahashi, famous for singing the Evangelion opening “Cruel Angel Thesis,” was going to do a concert, and there was going to be something with voice actors and cosplay. They didn’t specify Japanese or English voice actors, but after seeing all the Bang Zoom! ads playing on screen while everyone was taking their seats, I had a feeling it was just the dub actors. I was fine with that actually since I watched the Evangelion dub a lot back in the day and grew to like it. Even by today’s standards, it’s pretty decent.

After the MC said a few words, the event began with, what else…Yoko Takahashi! She was wearing an interesting outfit with horns and wings, very reminiscent of Maleficent. She of course sang “Cruel Angel Thesis” as well as “Fly Me to the Moon” and some non-Eva songs. She unfortunately didn’t sing the one other song I wanted to hear that she does, the first ending for Shakugan no Shana, “Yowake Umare Kuru Shojo,” but oh well. An amazing cellist and dancers performed with her too, which was cool. After that, three of the voice actors came on the stage: Tiffany Grant (Asuka), Amanda Win Lee (Rei), and the guy who did the vocalizations for Evangelion 01 who’s name I unfortunately can’t remember. Spike Spencer (Shinji) and John Swasey (Gendo) were supposed to attend as well but weren’t able to, so they left us a funny video message which we viewed on the big screen. Then the MC invited a few people from the audience to try dubbing a few lines from Evangelion with the voice actors’ help. They did very well considering how many people they were performing in front of! Then there was the cosplay event where cosplayers who had gotten invites in advance came to the stage and the audience voted on which one we liked the best. The winner had a full-on Evangelion 01 costume that he said took him a month to make…but I thought all the cosplayers were very good to be honest! Yoko and the cellist then performed a bit more before everyone came back on stage to do a group sing-along of “Cruel Angel Thesis.”

The Eva event actually ended a bit before 3:30 despite starting late. Overall, I guess it was worth the $50, though my only complaint is that, since we’re paying extra, an extra goodie for attending would have been nice, even just an exclusive little poster card or something like that. The cosplayers got goodie bags full of Bang Zoom! stuff, so a little something for everyone else would have been nice, especially since the ad for the event said there would be “prizes” (they didn’t specify that it was just for the pre-chosen cosplayers). But I guess it’s not a huge deal XD After the Eva event, I just headed back to my hotel and waited for my friends to pick me up so we could carpool back home.

Concluding thoughts on AX 2015

This was one of my more haphazard Anime Expo’s in terms of planning, since I originally wasn’t even going to go at all due to wanting to save my money for D23 Expo in August. But once I got a job and had some extra money, plus finding out that so many of my friends were going, last minute I decided to go for three days, only staying overnight one day thanks to rushed planning. Next year I’m gonna be more organized and get my own hotel in advance like I usually do XD Despite my waning passion for anime and AX events, I still love going to AX just for the atmosphere of being surrounded by people who have the same interests as me, and being able to hang out with friends I don’t get to see very often due to being a busy full-time worker now. And of course, there’s always at least a few events I want to go to, like the Weiss tournament and Eva event this year. So yes, I still don’t see myself skipping AX anytime soon XD

Sorry I’ve been so absent from blogging the past few weeks. There’s a reason for it, which I’ll explain later in the post as I have an important announcement to make about my future blogging schedule…

As some of you may know from my recent posts, since I’m not taking any summer classes, I decided to start looking for a job. Much to my surprise, after applying for a few last week, two of them decided to hire me! Obviously I had to choose one of them, so I chose the one I liked the best and my first day is this coming Monday. It’s a full-time job, which means I’m going to be much busier than I’ve been in a long time, which in turn means that I won’t be able to have any kind of consistent blogging schedule.

I don’t want to say that I won’t blog at all now that I’m working…it’ll just be sporadic, whenever I feel like it. And unfortunately, another reason for this new blogging schedule is something that I also expressed recently: I’ve just been running out of ideas and am experiencing a burnout in terms of writing about anime. As you guys know, I mostly like writing editorial posts, or other types of posts occasionally, and over the past few months I’ve been finding it harder and harder to come up with fresh topics I feel motivated to write about. Whenever I think I’ve come up with a blog topic, it’s either “I wrote about that already” or “I don’t feel like writing about that.” I also haven’t been quite as enthused with anime in general recently. I still consider myself a fan and am keeping up with my seasonal shows – it’s just been taking a backseat to my other interests. I’ve been feeling this way since earlier this year actually, as I mentioned in my birthday post, but it’s really hit hard over the past few weeks.

So what does this all mean in terms of the future of Mainichi Anime Yume? Well, like I said, this is not a 100% hiatus for the blog. I still have some motivation to write reviews of seasonal anime, as well as coverage of the conventions I’m going to this summer, and occasional other topics if/when they pop up in my head. So now my blogging schedule is simply going to be “When I have the time and motivation.” I might be able to post a couple of weeks in a row, and then not again for several months…it’s just gonna be random depending on what’s going on with me at that time. But again, I’ll always be around on Twitter tweeting things here and there, either related to real life or related to anime/blogging, so make sure to follow me there if you want to know when I have new posts or what’s been new in my life =)

And of course, nothing is certain. I could find out after my first month, week, or even day at the new job that it won’t work out for me for whatever reason. But I’m confident that won’t be the case and that it’s going to be the first step to a great career. For those of you who have been sticking with the blog even as it’s been fading a bit over the past few months, I really appreciate your support and hope you’ll continue to stay tuned whenever new posts crop up. Until then, see you all sometime in the far or near future…

*The title of this post is a line from one of my favorite Bob Dylan songs, “Forever Young“*

In a past post, I talked about how hype can sometimes ruin our enjoyment of an anime we may have otherwise liked. Whether an anime has staff pedigree or a reputable source material, these things are what make fans build high expectations for these titles before they even see them, which may inadvertently cause them to be disappointed had they not been so hyped. But while that topic was about hype ruining an anime before-hand, today I wanted to look at “post-hype”; how lasting popularity can cause us to hate something we may have just been neutral about, or even liked, otherwise…

Out of all the anime that come out every season, most simply fade away once they finish airing without much say from fans or anti-fans. Some might garner enough of a following to get a second season, but very few become amazingly popular – like, Evangelion, Madoka Magica, and Naruto kind of popular. But despite series like this being loved by so many, this also necessitates being hated by many. It’s not hard to see how this trend comes about: an anime airs and becomes very popular, thus a lot of people are talking about it, which causes more and more people to take notice of it and check it out, and if they don’t end up liking it as much as everyone else, they’re more inclined to make their opposing opinion heard simply because their view is different from the norm. And some people can just leave it at that – they personally didn’t think this anime was as good as everyone else thought it was, but oh well. Usually they can find something good about it and understand why it’s so popular even if those elements aren’t their cup of tea. But then you have the other affect that popularity causes – the backlash. The people who watched the anime and didn’t get blown away by it like everyone else feel cheated. Instead of accepting that it’s just not their thing and moving on, they get continually annoyed because everyone around them is still praising this anime, perhaps even years later. And that mild annoyance could then turn to anger and frustration, which then turns to downright hatred. Now the question arises: if this anime didn’t turn out to be so popular, would this person still have ended up hating it?

The answer to that is…probably not. They still may not have particularly liked it, but their dislike would have likely been more subdued. If the anime wasn’t such a hit, they wouldn’t be exposed to so many opposing opinions and thus wouldn’t feel such a strong need to defend their opinion and really question what they did or didn’t like about it. Then there are the cases where people actually kind of liked the anime, or at least thought it was decent/okay. But when it becomes so massively popular and everyone is praising it through the roof, rather than focus on the things they did like about it, they feel inclined to focus on what they didn’t like, and suddenly an anime they may have mildly enjoyed turns into one they dislike simply because of popularity. Again, I think this scenario has to do with annoyance at being bombarded by so many passionately differing opinions turning into hatred. In this case, rather than the frustration being “I thought that anime was bad, why do so many people like it?” it’s “Yeah, the anime was alright, but geez, it wasn’t THAT good! Calm down, people!” With so many fans praising an anime you thought was only “okay,” you again feel the need to defend your opinion of it being “okay.” So you start to focus on the things you didn’t like about it, since that’s what will take away points from all the praising fans. And consequently, by focusing on the negative things to back up your opinion of it being “not THAT good,” you forget what you originally liked about it and develop an overall negative attitude towards it. And again, this probably wouldn’t have happened had the anime in question not become so popular.

I suppose it’s human nature to be bothered when a lot of people have a differing opinion about something than you. But while hype or lack thereof could influence how I personally enjoy something, I certainly won’t let it flat-out determine that. If something I like happens to become very popular, yes, that does make my fandom fuller because I can easily share it with others. But ultimately my love of it comes from myself and I know I would still love it even if it wasn’t popular. On the other hand, if something I don’t like becomes popular, I still try to see what’s good about it and understand why so many people like it. If something’s popular, it’s because it has themes and elements that resonate with a wide variety of people, so usually I can find at least one good thing about it and just leave it at that. And if I really can’t find anything worth praising in it, it is annoying, but it’s not a big deal – we’re just talking about TV shows and movies after all. If the popular thing is something horrifyingly bad for real-life society, like, suddenly drowning puppies becomes a popular pastime, then yeah, I would be passionately upset. But if it’s just someone liking a cartoon or TV show that I don’t like, that’s not worth getting hate-filled about (unless the show advocates drowning puppies of course).

Popular Internet reviewer, Nostalgia Critic, made a good editorial video about how hype can potentially ruin people’s opinions of otherwise good movies. He uses many examples, including Frozen, A Christmas Story, and Lord of the Rings, but much of what he says can obviously relate to anime and other entertainment mediums as well. The overall message he gives at the end is one that I think sums up this topic of hype really well and is something that haters of popular things should think about: people will always obsess over things, so instead of being hateful, be glad that the thing they’re obsessing over isn’t a genuinely bad thing. For an anime example, even if you personally hate Madoka Magica, try to take comfort in knowing that at least this show people like so much has a compelling story, unique art style, and intellectual themes that convey things about life and humanity…in other words, there’s some worth in it, which makes its popularity better than the popularity of any number of stupid TV shows deprived of intellect and creative effort.

So, do you get angry when an anime you don’t like becomes popular? Or do you get angry at the people who hate on popular titles? Or do you just not pay attention to hype one way or the other? XD

Although my blog is mostly focused on editorial posts about anime and related topics, the other kind of post I enjoy writing is full series reviews of anime I complete each season. If you’ve read other anime reviews, you know that reviewers tend to have their own styles for reviewing anime, whether it’s more on the structured side or the “anything goes” side…

In a past post I talked about how I write and enjoy anime reviews, but it mostly focused on the mindset I have upon writing them, not so much how I structure them or what aspects I choose or don’t choose to write about. There are many ways to review anime or a similar medium: you can divide the review by category such as “Animation/Aesthetics,” “Plot/Story,” “Characters,” etc., and then in turn review each category, you can divide the review by “Good points” and “Bad points” and discuss specifically what you liked and what you didn’t like, if it’s a series with a linear story you could focus on whether the ending paid off or not, if it’s a comedy series you could judge it solely by whether it made you laugh…the list goes on. There’s also the number or letter grade rating some reviewers choose to give after the review, either to the anime as a whole or a rating for each of its different parts.

When I first started this blog and began writing seasonal anime reviews, I opted for the more structured method of reviewing an anime by section, perhaps spending a paragraph or two talking about the aesthetics, then another paragraph or two talking about the story, then talking about the characters, and so on. After a while however, I found that there were some anime I just didn’t have that much to say about in terms of these different things. For some anime, nothing about the art, music, or other aesthetics stood out to me. These elements weren’t bad enough for me to criticize them, but they weren’t good enough for me to feel the need to compliment them either. But because I felt I had to keep my category structure of reviewing, I found myself throwing in vague sentences like “The animation was decent” or “The opening and ending songs were nice” that really didn’t add anything to the review and just felt forced. There are a lot of anime where animation style or music really stand out, like Madoka Magica, the Haruhi movie, or the Monogatari series. But for most, at least to me, these things are just “fine” and don’t have any bearing on the show’s other aspects. Likewise, I felt like I had to talk about every character in an anime even if there was nothing of note about certain ones. So again, I’d find myself saying pointless things like “This character was okay” or “That character was decent” without going anywhere else with that thought, and it would stifle the review.

So as time went on, I loosened up my reviewing. Now when I sit down to review an anime, I only write about the things in that anime I have an opinion on. If I don’t have anything to say about an anime’s art style or a particular character, why force myself to come up with something to say? It takes away from the review more than it adds to it. This way I can spend more time on the aspects of the anime I do feel are worth talking about. My reviews tend to be long enough as they are, so why waste space talking about things I don’t feel are significant to what that anime offers? I’ve enjoyed writing reviews a lot more with this “freer” method. Sometimes I feel like spending a whole paragraph talking about one scene in an anime because I have that much of an opinion on it. Sometimes I feel like not talking about the background music because I hardly noticed it at all. Sometimes I feel like going through each episode of a short anime to talk about how it leads up to its ending, while other times I’ll only talk about its middle and barely mention the beginning or ending. I can write a lot better about something if I feel there’s something to say about it as opposed to pushing myself to talk about something I don’t think is worth mentioning, or talking about it in a way I don’t think does it justice. On the other hand, I do tend to follow the “Good points,” “Bad points” structure of trying to find both the good things and bad things in an anime, regardless of how I feel about it overall. If I really didn’t like an anime, it’s fair to at least try and find something I liked about it that kept me watching, which I usually can do. Likewise, if I loved an anime, I try to see the other side of it and think about what bad things it has that others could dislike. Not seeming biased one way or another is good for any kind of review in my opinion.

I’ve also never been a fan of giving number or letter grades to shows or movies I watch. Sites like MAL can give you a general idea of how someone feels about an anime, but it can be misleading. For an anime that made you feel a lot, whether positively or negatively, how do you summarize that into a number or letter? Sure, you could give a score by category, but how would you score the “Characters” portion of an anime when you thought a couple of characters were really good but a few others were bad? You could give an average score, but someone could easily interpret that as you thinking all the characters were average. So number or letter scoring something as complex as an anime series doesn’t hold much significance in my opinion. I don’t put any number rankings on my reviews because someone could skip the meat of the review to just glance at those and misinterpret the details of my opinion, which of course can only be conveyed in words.

My goal for writing an anime review, or a review of anything really, is both for my own enjoyment and to make sure I clearly say what I feel needs to be said about it. My enjoyment falters if I have to write about aspects of an anime I don’t think are important, which in turn gets in the way of my discussing the aspects I do feel are the crux of what the anime is. Maybe this way of reviewing isn’t the most tidy or organized way, but it’s the way I like =)

Hey all, sorry for the lack of a new post these past couple of weeks. I’ve been super busy since my last post and can’t find the time and energy to do a quality post today unfortunately (my last day with free time until next week). But as usual, I didn’t want to go this long without blogging at all, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to share the cool events I’m planning to blog about this summer…

…but before that, I’ll explain why I’ve been so busy lately in case anyone’s interested. Besides having a school project to work on and tests to study for, in addition to my usual homework, I also had a handful of errands to run, some freelance work on the side, opportunities to hang out with friends that always take precedence over blogging, and during the past week, my mom and I have been working like mad to catch this stray feral cat in our neighborhood that keeps having kittens. To make a long story short, a jerky neighbor of ours got a few cats some years ago, letting them be outside cats yet refusing to get them spayed for whatever stupid reason, resulting in litters of unwanted feral cats being born from a roaming male cat in the area. Eventually us and the neighbor’s family managed to get some of the cats fixed, caught most of the kittens and brought them to the shelter, and last year we even got a cat rescue organization to come to our home and help us catch two of the remaining female cats to be fixed. But unfortunately the one remaining cat that we thought was male ended up being female, and has had at least two litters since – we caught the kittens from the last litter and two out of five she had in this litter. I’ve been working like crazy these past few days trying to get this female cat to go into the animal trap we got, waiting for hours for her to go into our garage where the baited trap is so we can seal it off, but she’s been too smart for it! Yesterday my mom and I managed to trap her in our garage – we had actually trapped her in there the day before, but she escaped due to our old garage door being warped and not fully closing at the top, where she slipped out. We got the neighbors to board up the top of the garage so she can’t slip out again, and we’ve just been playing the waiting game since, hoping she’ll get hungry enough to go inside the trap where the food is…but so far no luck XP

So yeah, between the usual school and other real-life obligations, this cat business has been wearing me out XD But I know it’ll be over soon, so I’m gonna try and focus on the cool summer events I’m planning to attend that I’m sure you guys will enjoy reading about. Usually Anime Expo is the only big event I attend each year, but this year I have a couple of others on the list =)

Pokemon Symphonic Evolutions

For those of you who haven’t heard about this, Pokemon Symphonic Evolutions is a full-orchestra concert that plays music from all the Pokemon games, from Red and Blue to X and Y. I first heard about it a while back when it was only touring on the East Coast, but now it’s finally going to be touring in my area at the Greek Theater in LA! =D It’s touring at many other locations across the US this summer, so if you’re interested in checking it out, you can see all the locations here. The one I’m going to is on Saturday, July 11th. My boyfriend and I already bought our tickets – looking forward to it!

Anime Expo 2015

As I’m sure most of you know, I’ve been going to Anime Expo every summer since I started this blog (well, minus 2009 because I went to Japan instead XD) As I’ve stated in my past couple of AX coverages however, the convention has been peaking in terms of how much crowding the staff and venue can handle – basically it’s become too popular and thus too overcrowded and hectic. That still doesn’t hinder my overall enjoyment though, since I try to stay away from the very busy events. This year however, I’m planning to only go to AX for one or two days because I’m saving money for another big summer convention…

D23 Expo 2015

D23 Expo is a fairly new bi-annual Disney convention that’s held at the Anaheim Convention Center near Disneyland (where Anime Expo used to be held). The first Expo was in 2009, making this year’s the fourth one. I first heard about it last year, which was one of its by-years, and was thinking about whether I should try it out in 2015. Being a Disney fan as well as an anime fan, I finally made the decision to sacrifice a few days of Anime Expo this year for my first time at D23 Expo (since it’s only a 3-day convention, unlike AX). I’m not sure what to expect from this convention, but from what I’ve researched about it, it’ll have a lot of cool events like behind-the scenes reveals about future Disney projects, panels celebrating Disney’s history, live performances and autograph signings from Disney celebrities, and of course, lots of vendors selling goodies! Besides the My Little Pony convention I went to in 2013, this will be my first non-anime convention and I’m very much looking forward to it =D

Besides all these events, I’m also going to try looking for a part-time job this summer. I’m done wasting my time with minimum-wage retail jobs like I’ve had in the past; I’m hoping to get some kind of part-time IT/computer-related job, perhaps something like data entry. I don’t care if I have to start out at a lower paying entry-level position as long as I can get my foot in the door as far as work experience related to what I’m currently studying. Of course, if I do end up getting a job that continues into my next fall school semester, there’s a good chance I’ll be too busy between school and work to keep up the blog, and will have to put it on hiatus. But until that happens, I intend to keep up my schedule of a new post every 10-14 days. And even if the blog does go on hiatus in the summer, I’ll still find time to post my coverage of these three big events! XD

Anyway, that’s what’s been going on and will be going on with me! Thank you guys again for your support during my busy times and I’ll be back with a real post soon~